There is a question asked time and again on Facebook: "Should children be taught how to grow their own food as part of their schooling?"
From grade school to college, I learned how to do needlework, sewing, weaving and basketry as part of our vocational education. However, it was gardening when I was in Grade 5 that had a lasting effect on me. I excelled in all other subjects but I found needlework and sewing tedious, and I hated weaving and basketry.
Gardening was different, it was fun. Our class was divided into groups of four pupils, and each group had a plot to tend. We cultivated the soil until it was fine, then using a string strung from one end of the plot to the other to make the line straight, we sowed seeds, three to a hole. While the other groups planted eggplants, tomatoes, bitter gourd or okra, my group sowed stringbeans.
Gardening was fun because it was a group effort. We took turns fetching water from a well to water the plants, and while the girls weeded the plot, the boys procured bamboo poles to be used as stakes. It was fascinating to see a seed germinate and grow into a vine, climb the stake, then bear flowers and fruit. Fresh from the vine, our stringbeans were sweet and nutritious, but more importantly, they gave us a sense of accomplishment. Gardening in school taught us children a lifetime vocation, not to mention the meaning of unity and close cooperation.
The Agriculture for School Lunch Project, initiated by Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, teaches schoolchildren in border and impoverished areas to grow vegetables, which they then cook for lunch. For some of the children, it is their only substantial meal of the day, but the knowledge they gain puts them in better stead than their city-bred peers.
By teaching children to grow their own food, we arm them with a skill that is far more important than any profession. Farmers may stop producing food, truckers may stop transporting farm produce to markets, or there may be a shortage of certain crops in the market, but our children will never go hungry if they know how to grow their own food.
Montessori schools run by the OB (Operation Brotherhood) Montessori Centre in Manila are located in cities but they teach schoolchildren economic independence through agriculture, among other means. Children in kindergarten are taught to care for their own potted plants and the different parts of a flower and a tree. By grade school they know the function of each part, and as they move up to high school they learn to propagate plants by tissue culture. When they graduate, those who want to go into the plant business already know how to propagate plants by the hundreds, if not thousands, through tissue culture.
"The Montessori system of education is based on the premise that children have absorbent minds, and the most receptive stage is from the age of three to six," the school's founding president, Preciosa Soliven, explained.
The school has a demonstration farm where children are taken on field trips or camping to learn how to mix soil and organic matter, and pot ornamental plants as part of their hands-on training.
The main school in Greenhills is attended by the children and grandchildren of the elite in Philippine society, who have housemaids and gardeners working for them. But in school, the children have fun dirtying their hands, potting plants and learning a meaningful lifelong hobby, if not occupation.
Gardening, however, is not only learned in schools. Douglas Lambert, a retired schoolteacher who lives in New Zealand, learned gardening as part of the curriculum when he was in elementary school. He grew up to be a keen gardener, growing a collection of his own herbs that includes parsley, rosemary, thyme and coriander. "I have grown lettuce, beans and tomatoes as well as bok or pak choy in containers. Silver beet is always a great standby, especially here during our winter months," he said.
"It [gardening] died out of the schools so we have a generation of children who (unless their parents were gardeners) didn't know a carrot from a lettuce."
But it was not the end for his own children. As soon as they could walk, he gave them their own little garden and taught them the cycle of plant life in general terms.
"My older son Jon had his own little set of children's garden tools (metal and wood, not plastic junk of today) and would help me in the garden," he recalls. "At 18 months old, he had his own plot and I gave him seeds such as radish and cress so that there was quick germination and very quick results/satisfaction in getting his plants to grow.
"Very seldom do you see a delinquent gardener," he added. Today his son Jon is one of New Zealand's leading landscape architects.
If you know how to grow ornamental plants, then you know how to grow vegetables. They have the same basic requirements, namely, well-drained soil, full sun, nutrients, air and water. You can even plant your vegetables with your ornamentals. Marigolds planted side by side with the vegetables keep pests away, as well as add colour to the garden.
Teaching them how to beautify their surroundings and to grow their own food is the best legacy that we can leave our children. What do you say, readers?
Email nthongtham@gmail.com.
down to earth: Montessori schoolchildren are taught how to mix soil and organic matter, and pot ornamental plants as part of their hands-on training, right.
laying roots: Assorted vegetables and herbs are used in landscape design like ornamental plants, below. Photos: Normita Thongtham
